PR disasters aplenty for Scottish Labour

As K-Rudd’s Labor cruises to victory in Australia, Scottish Labour is smarting after a string of ‘PR professionals’ brought the party in disrepute; one did it by blogging, another shouted drunken profanities at a posh dinner. A predecessor was caught in Hugh Grant mode with a prozzie; Hollywood scriptwriters; who needs ’em?
SCOTTISH LABOUR’S new spin-doctor Gavin Yates made a series of damning criticisms of his colleagues weeks before he accepted the job as the party’s head of comms, reveals Scotland’s Sunday Herald. Creating a PR disaster-in-waiting, Yates used his blog to describe the party leader as “abrasive”, labelled the shadow health minister as “simply uninspiring”, and blasted Jack McConnell for being a “lame duck leader” when in office. Hmmmm; those weekly PR strategy sessions should be interesting then? His comments featured on his WordPress-hosted blog, GYmedia. A message on the blog page now states: “The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available.” But the Sunday Herald has uncovered a number of Yates’s postings, many of which portray the Labour leadership in a negative light.
In a lame defence Yates said: “My comments have been taken out of context. I wrote them as a journalist in July and they do not reflect my own views.” So Gavin, as blogging’s all about expressing your own views, you don’t know the difference between blogging and journalism; In a senior PR role, you should.

Scottish Labour’s previous media aide, Matthew Marr, resigned just over a week ago after shouting the C-word at an opposition party leader during an awards ceremony.
Several years back, Labour PR staffer Philip Chalmers’ departure was accelerated after being caught in his car in Glasgow’s red-light zone with a prostitute.